by Cate Morgan
Dedication
For Mom, who let me read pretty much anything I wanted despite the concerns of the occasional well-meaning teacher or librarian as to age-appropriateness.
Also, for always believing I could do it.
Chapter One
A tale of two cities. How did the story go?
Ah, yes.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Which, all things considered, summed matters up about as well as anything else these days.
Aika Lareto walked the crowded midnight streets, passing windows of flashing, shrill advertisements that tried to latch onto her as they tried to identify her by a nonexistent birth chip, faltered and hooked onto the next passersby. A hologram stepped out onto the pavement to waylay her. She walked through it. It glitched, fizzled out, and disappeared. As she turned alongside the river, her gaze slid upward to the biosphere encasing the city since the Seven-Year War rendered the outside environs uninhabitable.
Only the most mega of the conglomerates could afford time and space on the sphere, in the very sky itself, exposing citizens to the latest in shiny new products. The new online hologame from the Microsoft-Starbucks merger of 2015, for instance, was hailed as a door-busting hit a mere year before release. The biosphere’s architects had no doubt laughed themselves breathless over that one, had Dreamtech’s board of directors any sense of humor to speak of.
So what really lay beyond the biosphere? Her final action had been here in the city, and here she stayed, awaiting orders. Like the rest of its denizens, she only knew what the governing board released to them, properly sugared and spiced. Global warming accelerated by the effects of the war? Flattened suburbs that had been evacuated during the fifth year, crowding the city to bursting? No one knew. Not many wanted to know. Those that did tended to be the dregs of society—the fringe dwellers and underground lurkers, assorted conspiracy theorists and general crazies.
Aika skirted a Technicolor block party pulsating beneath a violent fuchsia tarp anchored to street lamps with jellyfish tendrils, then slipped into a side street packed end to end with small clubs, all night takeaways and street vendors offering food and stimulants to keep the crowds going—and spending. The throngs migrated in one direction, taking as much notice of her as a river parting around a rock. It was a knack, this not being noticed. Almost as effective as going between. She needn’t have bothered, except for the practice.
She passed an alley on her left. The muted chink of a broken bottle skittered across its dark, damp well of concrete and brick. She didn’t think twice; she pulled folds of shadow around her like a midnight blanket and stepped into the time and space between this world and the Other.
It was like being deep underwater, close and oppressive, but she was inured to its womb-like dark. Time slowed. Space expanded. She braced herself. Pushed as she exhaled from the abdomen, and squeezed herself back through to the end of the block on the opposite side of the partygoer currents. She stepped beneath the awning of a trendy sushi bar, the wide front windows pulled open so the overflow could perch on its sill. Paper lanterns exuded improbable colors—summer-sun yellow, peacock blue, hot-pant pink.
Two figures in overcoats hurtled out of the alley, arguing strenuously. One sported the sort of Nordic bulk associated with Thor, his companion dark and wiry. Violent arm gestures ensued.
Smiling, she cut through a few more side streets and made her way to the nearest tube station, in the opposite direction of the stragglers. Oversized advertisements continued their mocking dance overhead against the near invisible curve of the biosphere, lighting the iron cross above Saint Somebody-or-Other’s across the river. It had changed management once or twice. These days it was a nightclub so elite she was surprised they had any patrons to speak of. She supposed everyone needed a niche in such a competitive market.
Her world lay elsewhere. In the Burnout Zone, among the dregs. A thriving black market had sprung up among the piles of tumbled walls afforded by the disused Underground tunnels and fallen bridge. Blankets were spread on the ground, the more resourceful with overhead tarps and makeshift tabletops offering a variety of salvage, trinkets and handmade goods. The closer she got to her destination, she passed more amulets in the shapes of crosses and stars crafted from twisted wires and knotted string, anything they could find.
One of her regulars waved her over to his blanket, a prime location along the main thoroughfare. “What’s on today, Carl?” She looked over the hodgepodge of questionable salvage. Only the very brave, naïve or strange bought from Carl, but she gave the sprawl a professional once over anyway.
He leaned forward on his rickety crate, ragged dog end trapped between his fingers like a fly in a Venus flytrap. It was difficult to tell the yellowed, smoldering rollup from his tartar-stained fingers as he wafted black smoke over his reclaimed treasures. “In the market for an upscale…whatever this is?” He prodded a misshapen object with his boot.
She stared at the…item, momentarily fascinated. “Unfortunately not.”
“No, I didn’t think so.” He shook his head. “Business could be better, what with the new cleanup initiatives. Folk don’t throw out anything worth having no more. How’s the old man?”
“I’m sure he’d love a chat,” she assured him. Regardless of his merchandise, Carl’s information was always good, not to mention identifiable. “It’s beef tonight.”
“I prefer squirrel.”
She tried not to shudder. Thank the angels meat rationing had been lifted last year. “We’ll see what we can do next batch. Shall I tell Himself you’re coming?”
Carl nodded, and she waved as she continued on.
The proprietor of her destination looked up as she approached, sliding her bike pack off her shoulder. He was still young despite thinning blonde hair, and had a sweet little-boy smile. “Did you find it?” He left off hammering his new countertop into place beneath a stone arch. It had once been someone’s sturdy oak door—now it was payment in full for services rendered.
“It wasn’t easy.” She unzipped the worn black leather and lifted her precious cargo from inside. “When do you think it will be ready?”
He laid down his hammer and took the break line in both hands. He should have been a surgeon with those hands, or a great artist. Instead his calling and hands had led him here. She wouldn’t entrust her father’s ’74 Bonneville to anyone else.
“Give me a few days.” He grinned at the look on her face. “You want it done right, don’t you?”
“You’re killing me, padre.”
He shrugged. “Consider it your Lent sacrifice.”
“I’m not Catholic.”
“Tell that to Saint Patrick.”
She gifted him a long, slow killing look. “No one likes a wise-ass priest, Bobby. It’s even less attractive in an angel.”
“Then it’s a good job it’s an acceptable trait in a mechanic. Especially in an emergency.” He waved the break line at her. Then he set the part aside, chewing his bottom lip as humor fled. “Who would cut your brakes? And why?”
“I wish I knew.” If they were reduced to such amateurish tactics, the Zone should be safe enough for the time being—for a given value of safe, considering what Carl had been dragging back of late. “We’re sure to find out when they take another swipe at me.”
The door to the south gate was marked with a forlorn Personnel Only sign hanging by one hinge and opened into a series of tunnels that snaked north through fallen stone arches and abandoned vaults. Despite the occasional rat scurry in the dark, it was a peaceful place, with intermittent shafts of light filtering through street-level grates. No one lived in this particular labyrinth, no plywood shanty villages or musty
stone bunkers. This was due to the fact it didn’t exist in the normal scheme of things. A gate had to be opened, and she was one of two people in residence who could do the opening.
In the center of the switchback tangle of paths a bright cherry flame lit the dark, beckoning like the beating heart of a sleeping dragon. As she reached the stone and brick pit the fire flared in recognition. She reached for the ladle hanging alongside the great iron cauldron and dipped it inside. Steel scraped against iron with little resistance, and she nodded. No matter how low provisions got, they never completely ran out. That was part of the purpose of this place.
The Tree and Flame’s cellar door stood open nearby. Bound in a hollow of space and time, only those truly in need, without harm in their hearts, could find their way to its sanctuary. She ascended the stairs into the kitchen and passed through to the common room.
Aika acknowledged a few regulars as she hung her coat on the peg behind the door. “Stew’s nearly out.”
The old man perched on a stool behind the bar counted a row of stitches in his knitting. “You know how to peel potatoes.”
“So do you.” She reached for her apron where it hung from the pommel of a sword mounted on the wall. There was nothing impressive about the thirty-inch blade—no fancy tooling, a plain hilt, comfortable grip wrapped in black leather thong and anchored by an oblong knob for crushing the occasional passing skull. It served one function, and pretty wasn’t it.
Lightning-blue eyes glanced at her from behind half-moon bifocals. “Mind your superiors, girl. And your elders, while you’re at it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How old are you, anyway?”
“If I told you it’d put hair on your chest.”
It was all the answer he would ever give her. “Carl wants a word. Sounds like he’s got something dancing under his hat.”
He nodded. “I suppose it’s about the squirrel again.”
“I brought it up, but it wasn’t.” A series of rhythmic knocks tattooed the back wall. They paused their bickering to listen.
“That’s him now.” He slid off his stool with easy grace and folded the unfinished sock in his place. Carl never came in, one of his idiosyncrasies. “Pull me the usual, and I’ll see what he wants. Mind the foam.”
Aika pulled two stouts, poured two whiskies and handed him the tray.
Just another night in the Burnout Zone, nothing unusual at all.
Declan Pryce had not gotten a full day’s sleep since a bomb exploded his parents out of existence in the Seven-Year War. So it came as no surprise when nightmares plagued his sleep once again, entangling him in scratchy army blankets and discarded him, spent, onto the shabby rug. He stared into the lowering dark of early evening, sweat plastering hair into his eyes.
When his breathing slowed sufficiently for feeling to return to his limbs, he disentangled himself from the twisted bedding and heaved himself onto the edge of the narrow bed. His shaking hand knocked a water bottle from the bedside table as he reached for it, issuing a muted thud on the area rug. He retrieved it with a murmured curse, experiencing instant relief when the lukewarm liquid settled his stomach.
Knowing sleep would not return, he slouched across his small illegal loft to the bank of computers humming like a beehive in the mellow quiet. A folding table against the wall offered a makeshift kitchenette in the form of an expensive coffee maker and cheap microwave.
“Hello, darlings.” He slid into his worn chair that shrieked like a banshee if he leaned too far back and flipped on the coffee maker. Despite the audible protests of the seat’s bearings, it fit him like a comfortable pair of jeans.
His three monitors awakened at the sound of his voice, the machines activating their program sequences. He decided to run through CCTV clips captured by his patch into its outmoded system first. A few he saved for later examination—most he discarded. His coffee maker dispensed fresh, strong brew into a plain black ceramic cup as a new string of grainy images began its run. Halfway through he stopped the video stream and restarted it, not certain of what he’d seen. It took three repeated viewings, at slower speeds and narrowly focused pixilation, to confirm with his eyes what his brain did not believe. He replayed it again, coffee cooling with fragrant accusation.
A figure in dark clothes strode down a street in what was not quite the vice district, flickering in the vivid dancing lights of enticements. His or her gait was one of purpose, belied by a hint of absentmindedness only the truly unconcerned could manage. She, he could see now—walked against the crowd, skirting revelers and the human race as a whole. He leaned closer.
She passed an alley and was obviously spooked by what she sensed there, because she inexplicably disappeared.
Quickly, without conscious volition, he re-engaged the link to this particular feed and searched nearby cameras for video from different angles. He was annoyed to find facial-recognition programs could not gather sufficient info to identify the walker.
Finally he found her again, beneath the overhang on a far corner. For a fleeting instant she looked nearly full on into the camera, a sardonic smile twitching the corners of her mouth. He took a snapshot and followed her progress, camera to camera, until she disappeared into the Burnout Zone, where no satellite feed would ever reach again. He exhaled, printed the shot and stuffed his coffee into the microwave. While he waited for it to reheat, he cleared a space on his corkboard and hung the photo among the wild detritus of false hopes and starts. When the microwave dinged he retrieved his coffee and sat back to consider the odd light in her eyes while his mind raced with possibilities.
Had he actually found one? One of the angels or demons who had begun walking the earth during the war? Or was she one of the others, still human, yet more? Demi-human, he called them, for lack of a better term. Part human, part…something else, biding their time until the Horsemen rode. Signs of the approaching apocalypse had been lining up for years, but hardly anyone was paying attention.
He was inclined to believe the latter. There was something ancient in her eyes, a weary but determined set to her closed-off face. He wore the same expression whenever he looked in a mirror.
The Burnout Zone. No one ever went there that didn’t have to. The old bridge was little more than a heap of rubble, its tunnels shelter for a black market of shady business dealings and their dealers, a fringe society of the hopeless and not-entirely-there. He’d gone there once or twice, but it was not an experience he cared to repeat. He frequented his own brand of underground establishments with their unique collection of conspiracy theorists, where the food was better and hygiene more of a priority. Nor had the contents of his pockets ever wandered off in pursuit of their own adventures.
One of his other monitors flashed a black-and-red warning at him, buzzing a computer version of a genteel cough to attract his attention. He spun his chair and tapped a few keys to access the new information.
This one wasn’t from one of his regular channels, rather a back channel he’d rarely seen triggered. It was, in fact, a new bounty activated by someone handled as The Agent.
One guess who the target was.
Once again his coffee was left to cool, abandoned, as his chair spun gently in place.
Declan was perfectly accustomed to being ignored. It tended to be a point of pride in his business. The organizations from which he skimmed information didn’t even know they should be looking for him, this anonymous cortex phantom who plucked innocuous facts and tidbits from their stores the way the tooth fairy plucked teeth from beneath pillows without the owner ever waking up.
Now, however, it proved to be something of a problem.
“Excuse me? Sir? Do you know where I can find this woman?” A rack of metal necklaces with homespun pendants swayed as yet another dreg skirted his outstretched arm. “I mean, ma’am. Miss? Sorry.”
“They think you’re private security.”
Declan turned eagerly at this fresh evidence of his own existence. He was beginning to wonder. “I’m not. Do
you know who she is?” He proffered his hand comp hopefully, the grainy image flickering in the orange light of an overhead oil lantern.
The man behind the counter didn’t bother to look up from the chrome headlamp shell he was industriously wiping clean as he shook his thinning blonde head. If anything, he increased his efforts. “Sorry.”
Anger seeped into Declan’s voice, after a long struggle with his patience. “You didn’t even look.”
“Don’t have to. Doesn’t matter.”
“Why the hell not?” And immediately regretted language and tone when he saw the white collar paired with the black shirt.
The priest set the part down with extraordinary long-fingered hands and infinite care. “Look around you. What do you see?”
Declan shrugged. “I don’t know. Dregs, I suppose.”
The smile on the other man’s face was bittersweet. “These people you call dregs have been run to ground, given up on by nearly everyone. The Burnout Zone is the only haven they have left.”
“Point being?”
“Point being, no one here gives up anyone else. It may be the only rule we’ve got, but it’s ours.”
“Stop messing about with the Obi Wan Kenobi act, will you?” Declan ground out in deliberate tones meant for the slow of thinking. “It’s important I find her before someone else does.”
The priest nodded and went back to his polishing. “I shouldn’t worry about it. She’ll see them coming.”
Two could play it that way. “If you’re so keen on shielding her, shouldn’t someone tell her there’s a bounty on her head?”
He stopped polishing, opting to stare instead. “What? No, impossible.”
Declan wordlessly offered his hand comp once more. This time, to his immense relief, the priest took it.
After a good long look, he handed it back, looking at Declan with new eyes. “You truly mean her no harm?”
“Quite the opposite.”
“Well, I suppose if you’re lying, she’ll be the first to know.” He pointed with his chin since his hands were occupied. “The Tree and Flame. Follow the dinner crowd, you can’t miss it.”
